Newtown refugee aid group hopes for new family to resettle

NEWTOWN - The good news for an interfaith group that helped resettle a refugee family from Congo in the spring is that the group is ready to help a new immigrant family, organizers said.

The bad news is it may be a long time before a family is sent to the group, because of the White House ban on refugees from Muslim-majority countries.

“The pipeline for awhile has dried up entirely,” said Rick Chamiec-Case, a co-founder of the Interfaith Partnership for Refugee Resettlement in Newtown. “But we are ready whenever the family comes.”

The IPRR, which formed in 2016, works with the New Haven-based resettlement agency Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS, to provide everything a family needs in a new country - from food and clothes to housing, education and employment.

IRIS, which works with the federal government, placed 530 refugees in Connecticut in 2016, working with groups such as the IPRR in Newtown.

Last year, the number of refugee families resettled in Connecticut dropped to 300.

“This year, we might resettle 200 families,” said Chris George, executive director of IRIS. “Our arrivals are down because of the Trump administration ban, so it is impossible to know when we will have a family for Newtown.”

Members of the Newtown group said their experience helping a Congolese family of six start a new life in greater Danbury was an uplifting and meaningful mission that they hope to continue.

“We loved them to death - they were such a wonderful family,” said Sharon Cohen, a member of the Newtown interfaith group. “They were such a happy family, considering what they had gone through, and considering that they didn’t speak the language, and they had never been to a western country.”

The family, which had lived the previous 15 years in a refugee camp, found kin to live with in Michigan in April.

The group’s goal is to help each refugee family gain the stability to live on its own after six months. To do that, volunteers need to be ready with comprehensive services, from translation to transportation.

The interfaith group, which includes members of Trinity Episcopal Church, Newtown Congregational Church, Al Hedaya Islamic Center, Baha'i Community, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Congregation Adath Israel, is looking for volunteers who have connections to employers, Chamiec-Case said.

Similar groups that work with IRIS in greater Danbury include the Refugee Resettlement Committee of Ridgefield, Danbury Area Refugee Assistance and the Refugee Resettlement Ministry at the Congregational Church of Brookfield.

“We do find that when we serve refugees we receive wonderful and loving responses from people asking ‘How can we help?’” Chamiec-Case said. “We also find that some are in not favor of refugees here, so we have to do more work in the community to be sure when a family comes it feels welcome instead of a cold shoulder.”